1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a hair clipper, and more particularly to a home use hair clipper having a cutter head and a hair entrapping member which is movable toward and away from a cutting edge of the cutter head.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Home hair shearing has been generally done by the use of scissors With the scissors, it is rather difficult for an unskilled person to perform hair shearing since it requires to manipulate the scissors in one hand and at the same time to hold hairs between the fingers of the other hand. Particularly, when manipulating the scissors, the blade edges of the scissors will engage the hairs at an inclined angle and be likely to push the hairs out of position along the blade edges as the blades are closed, failing to provide a straight cut. Thus, the straight cut with the use of the scissors requires a considerable skill and is found not to be practical at home. On the other hand, powered hair clippers have been utilized for many years in homes which are easy to manipulate and effect a straight cut. The prior hair clipper, as typically shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,546, is provided with a cutting head having a toothed stationary blade and a toothed movable blade. The movable blade is driven to reciprocate in hair shearing engagement between the toothed edges of the stationary and movable blades. Although the prior hair clipper may have a comb projecting past the cutting edge of the cutter head, it is manipulated to move in advance of the cutting edge which are held in contact or in close relation with the skin. Therefore, the prior art hair clipper is still required to be carefully manipulated in such a manner not to injure the skin by the cutting edge. This is particularly important when shearing the hairs of a baby or child. To eliminate the above problems and insufficiencies, a unique hair clippers have been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,050,304 and also in application Ser. No. 565,501 filed on Aug. 10, 1990, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,123,151, in which an elongated base cover is hinged to a like elongated housing formed at its front end with a cutting head with a cutting edge. The base cover is formed with a hair entrapping member which moves toward and away from the cutting edge for entrapping the hairs between the cutting edge and the hair entrapping member for immediate shearing thereat. Even with these proposed hair clippers, however, there remains a problem that the hairs are likely to shift or escape when manipulating to close the hair entrapping member against the cutting edge for hair shearing therebetween. This makes it rather difficult and inconvenient to shear the hairs in a desired fashion. In this respect, the prior art hair clippers are found still insatisfatory for achieving a convenient hair styling even by a unskilled user.